The art of the automatic and semi-automatic weapons is well advanced. Over many years of painstaking improvements, the firing rate has been significantly increased, and the weight of the weapon significantly decreased. The operational reliability has also improved substantially.
Still, whatever standards of performance are obtained, the weapon must frequently be stripped for field maintenance and also be dismantled for routine care. Routine care conducted in the barracks rarely involves tactical problems. The soldier, however skilled or unskilled, must and does simply plod his way through the procedures, and if there is no hostile presence for which he would need the weapon, complexity of construction or time consuming stripping procedures may be a nuisance, but they are not a safety concern.
The same cannot be said for field stripping operations, where the disability of the weapon for any period of time is not only undesirable, but can be life threatening. Then in the event of malfunction, the capacity to strip, clean and reassemble the weapon in the shortest time becomes a critical consideration. The capacity to conduct this operation in the shortest time requires that the construction of the weapon be elegantly simple, and that the required procedure be simple enough for the most basic soldier to carry out without supervision, delay, or uncertainty.
Thus, a weapon to be optimal under these circumstances should have a minimum of parts to be kept in mind by the soldier, be disassembled with least motion and preferably without special tools, and be reassembled using literally abrupt movements without endangering surfaces which should not be scratched or galled. These are not new considerations. All competent weapon designers must have them in mind. However, existing automatic and semi-automatic weapons continue to suffer from complexities that reduce the weapon to a less than optimum device.
A weapon according to this invention can be dissassembled in about nine seconds, total. No special tool is needed. No part need be laid aside to be required during the procedure, thereby greatly improving the integrity of the weapon from a readiness standpoint. The parts of the weapon whose condition is likeliest to require field stripping are not only readily accessible, but also can conveniently be removed and replaced, although this latter feature is an unlikely requirement in the field. It is much likelier that the disassembled weapon will merely be immersed and rinsed in water to remove sand or dirt, and the weapon quickly reassembled, with or without applying oil or lubricant.
While this invention is applicable to many specific types of weapons, its principal use is expected to be in assault rifles, where simplicity, lightness of weight, and ready stripping and reassembly are prime requirements.